Chapter 2: The Sportscar

For some reason, Scott was adamant that they kept the unwanted visit secret from his mom. He did not want to add to her already pretty high stress levels. Which was a point Joe could agree upon, even if it churned her stomach to hide stuff from Aunt Melissa. Still, Joe knew that the grocery bills alone were a cause for concern at the moment as Scott was a growing boy with the appetite of one. Aunt Melissa was picking up so many extra shifts she was hardly ever home. That was why she relied on Joe to help Scott with his homework, which she did whenever the boy in question could find time to do it. With his lacrosse practice and newfound lady interest, he was out of the house more and more as well.

It was just the two of them at breakfast the morning after.

"Remember you have a Chemistry report to hand in next week," Joe said without looking away from her own set of papers she had to grade and get back to her Prof by the end of the day. Her position as TA took a lot of time, but at least it meant she could chip in a few bucks every month towards groceries and stuff. Scott groaned a confirmation that he had heard her and quickly gulfed down a large bowl of cereal.

"You're on your own for dinner tonight, by the way, I got lectures and tutoring all day," Joe continued while Scott kept grunting in response. Not a morning person, in fact, his eyes were barely open. "I'll be home late."

He swallowed thickly and proceeded to empty the juice carton in two large gulps. "Mom's still asleep?"

"Working graveyards this week."

"Mhm."

Joe tore her focus away from the botched interpretation of the textbook one of the undergrads had handed in. Scott sat staring down into the empty cereal bowl, strings of still wet hair hanging limply over his forehead. "You okay? You look-"

"Tired, I know."

"I was gonna say 'like shit', but okay," Joe continued with a shrug. "You get any sleep last night?" The walls were thin and she'd heard him tossing and turning while she was up late finishing her reading for today's class.

Scott mumbled. "Some." He sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Like a girl question...?"

"Ugh." Joe made a face, but nevertheless put the papers away and peered at Scott over her cup. Bracing herself for any high school-drama. "Fine."

"I kind of, uh, ditched a girl at a party on Friday."

"Because you're not interested in her?"

"No! No, that's the thing, I really like her. Like, really really like her."

"So why'd ya ditch her?"

"That's..." Scott looked utterly defeated. "...complicated."

"All right," Joe said and shrugged again. She got up to clear the table. "Just tell her the truth and apologize."

"That's the thing," Scott said quickly and followed Joe to the sink with his own bowl. "I can't really tell her the truth." He fidgeted with the edge of a kitchen towel laying by the clean dishes. "Do you think there's any way she'll give me another chance?"

Joe rinsed her cup and started to fill her thermos with coffee from the pot. What was with this boy lately? She thought they had weathered the worst of his puberty a couple of years back when he got a new shoe size each week, but this was in many ways worse. She thought about his question and concluded: "Well...only if she really really likes you too."

They went separate ways - Scott took his bike to school and Joe locked up the house to let Aunt Mel get her sleep before she took her car to Berkely. The '99 Ford Fiesta in the fetching color of undetermined blue-ish was still holding up, even if it was by the grace of duct tape in several places. Decent mileage, decent safety rating to achieve decent insurance cost and compatible with most of-the-shelf spare parts to keep the costs down on the rare occasion she took it to a garage. Back east she had a lot of school friends who tinkered with cars in their spare time so she never had to pay for service. Not so lucky here in the west.

"Great news," said her professor the same instant Joe came into the office. Professor Kane was brilliant, but slightly eccentric. Even if she was one of the highest esteemed academics in their field, had a six-figure salary and several bookdeals, she insisted on dressing like a middle school crafts teacher. Freshmen met with the vision that was Professor Kane, with homemade jewelry, multi-colored knitwear and old, sturdy loafers often made the mistake of not taking her seriously. A lot of them were dropped from the class only weeks later when they failed to keep up with her brilliance.

"Great news?" Joe asked and put two paper cups down, one with herbal tea for the Prof and one with regular coffee for herself.

"I just found the perfect case study for your next academic paper," Professor Kane said and pushed her bangly bracelets up her arm to hold a local newspaper up. The entire front page was scattered with different stories on a dead body found in the Beacon Hills Preserve. Joe took the newspaper from her hands, trying to find the academic interest. She had to submit a multitude of journal papers to get her degree approved.

"The animal attack?" Joe asked, because that was what the locals claimed, even though it hadn't been confirmed yet.

"The alleged animal attack!" Professor Kane exclaimed and snatched the newspaper back. "But not the attack itself, dearest, the public reaction to it! The concerned citizens, the online conspiracies, the rumors and whispers and hinting that this might be more. There are so many similarities to fifteenth-century Bedburg, Toledo 1852, 1936 West Milford - simpler times, sure, but the public reaction remains the same, even with all the education, knowledge, technology we possess today."

"Bedburg, Toledo and West Milford..." Joe repeated and took a sip of her coffee to buy some time. Professor Kane had set her large eyes on her, watching intently to see if Joe could spot the connection. "Those are all cases used as so-called evidence for werewolves."

"Yes!" Professor Kane did a fist pump. "And all those cases...?" she prompted, nodding encouragingly.

"Ended in convictions," Joe finished. "For lycanthropy."

"Exactly!" Professor Kane spread the newspaper out, most of the mid-section occupied by a large picture of the entrance to the Beacon Hills Preserve with Sheriff Stilinski in plain view next to an ambulance. "Of course, a legal conviction in the 15th century and today are two vastly different things, but why did they need a conviction? Why was this different than a wolf or bear snatching the occasional sheep or cow?"

"Fear? Anger?" Joe guessed. "Losing a beloved is more than just nature's course, they wanted a culprit to blame?"

"Exactly! And when humans can not find a natural explanation, what do we do?"

"We turn to the supernatural."

Professor Kane nodded fervently. "Yes! So what really separates the modern man from his unenlightened predecessor?"

This was textbook, a point she made in almost every lecture. "The internet. We have more ways to communicate. More ways to spread fear."

Her professor pressed her hands together in a prayer-like position and beamed. "Exactly, Miss Delgado. Oh!" Professor Kane made several approving noises as she sipped her tea. "I want a draft proposal on my desk by next Friday. Three research questions, a methodology outline and a timeline. By any luck, we'll hit the Easter deadline."

"Great," said Joe and watched the mountain of work she had grow larger still. Research meant legwork which meant talking to people, not exactly her forte. She escaped from Professor Kane's office without any additional tasks, attended the lectures, spent some mind-numbing hours in the library with the students she tutored and it was well and dark outside before she got back in the car.

Working as a private tutor was good money for easy work, but it was so incredibly boring. She rested her head on the steering wheel, contemplating taking a short nap before driving home. No, she needed to get back as fast as possible - she had other work to complete before she could think about possible research questions for the Beacon Hills-case. She hadn't even paid that much attention to it - missing hikers turned up from time and again in the preserve, mostly in a decomposed state, so what was so special about this one that it warranted national attention? Not too many details in the news media about this, which was probably why people were getting so worked up. People liked to fill in the blanks.

She took the long way home, which was less stressful than the highway. Apart from the occasional motorcycle, she was alone on the road. The mellow voice from the Alanis Morissette-CD soothed her and gave her just enough background noise to think.

Werewolves, huh? The US did not have that much history with werewolf lore, whereas almost every country in Europe had at least one case of a "documented" werewolf. A lot of other cultures had similar shapeshifting monsters in their reportoire. The US seemed more riddled with other beasts - Bigfoot, the Mothman, Chupacabra...The monsters that could pass for humans were less popular in the US. Not in fiction, of course, but in reported cases. Maybe it was part of the American forthrightness, that people could just not wrap their head around a monster in disguise. That might be a point to add in her paper.

"Dude. Really?" A pair of headlights had been steadily approaching from behind and now they lit up the inside of the Ford. Joe groaned and adjusted her mirror.

The dark car currently tailgating her made no motion to pass her. This was the old highway, before they built the I-5, so there were plenty of room. Joe rolled her eyes and signalled to the right to make them take the hint. In the dark, it was hard to see the make or model. Not a pick-up at least, the lights were sitting too close to the asphalt for that.

"Jesus," Joe muttered when the car did not take the hint. She turned off the signal and stayed right there on the speed limit. "Fine. Asshole."

The car suddenly roared and pulled up so it was cruising next to her, maintaining the exact same speed. It was a slick black sportscar, but she did not know enough about cars to pinpoint the model. Tinted windows, so she could not get the satisfaction to see what kind of moron was driving. Resisting the urge to give the driver a plain view of her middle finger, she focused on the road ahead. It was blessedly empty still.

They stayed like that for far too long. Her shoulders started to ache with the effort of clutching the wheel so hard, she was ready to emergency brake in case of sudden oncoming traffic. A change in the steady purr of the other car made her glance sideways.

"Are you shitting me?" Joe erupted when the car forced itself in front of her and into her lane. She barely had time to brake and almost swerved straight into a ditch. She laid on the horn, but this had the opposite effect when the car slowed down instead.

"Come on!" she yelled, drowning out whatever Alanis was trying to sing, and watched the speedometer tick down to 50-40-30 mph! She started to sweat. One thing was certain, she was not stopping the car no matter what. They were alone in the middle of nowhere and this could be a ruse to get her out of the car. She pressed her whole palm onto the horn.

They were almost down to 20, when the sportscar revved into life and zipped ahead of her at record speed. Skidmarks marked the road as the car disappeared behind a bend. She blinked her longlights a few times, knowing it had no effect, and swore harshly under her breath as she began to pick up speed again. Some people had too much spare time.

Before she could change gears, she had to slam down the brakes again. The old Ford screeched in protest and she skidded to a full stop just in time for an entire horde of black-tailed deer storming across the road. The echo of their trampling feet shook the car and she stared at the sight of literally hundreds of deer running in a wild panic from one part of the forest to the next.

"Holy shit," she breathed and fumbled with her cell-phone to record it, but the lighting was too poor. She regularly drove this stretch and was used to seeing one or two crossing at times. But a stampede like this? Only on TV, when a large forest fire forced all the wildlife to migrate all at once. What were they running from? Volcano? Earthquake? It was in the middle of winter, not exactly high-season for forest fires.

The herd passed and the night grew eerily silent again. She rolled her window down, to see if she could smell smoke. Nope. It was really quiet though. No hoots or chirps or cicadas or-

A howl erupted from within the forest.

Immediate reaction: wolf! More logical explanation: coyote. At least they were native to California, although not abundant this far north. Did coyotes howl? Did it matter?

Another howl, tapping straight into the primate part of her brain that screamed danger. Joe forced her car into gear and sped off without rolling up the window. She checked the mirror constantly, but no sign of anything.

Her hands were numb by the time she pulled up to the McCall-house. The lights were still on in Scott's room and she breathed a sigh of relief. She really needed to not be alone right now. It took her several tries to unlock the door with trembling fingers, but she got in and made sure to lock the door behind her as well. Right now she was really sympathizing with whoever was writing online conspiracies on werewolf attacks in Beacon Hills.

"Scott?" she called and bounced up the stairs. She'd known him all his life, she'd lived with them on and off throughout the years and he was more like a little brother than a cousin. A couple of years ago she would have barged into his room without question, but when he hit puberty she learned the hard way why that could be a bad idea. She knocked on the door instead, rapid short knocks. "Scott? You up?"

A bang from inside made her jump back. It sounded like someone throwing themselves against the wall. Her hand was poised on the doorknob, but she recalled Scott's newfound love interest. Maybe she really really forgave him for Friday?

"Uh, Scott?" she called again, resisting the urge to eavesdrop in case she heard more than she wanted to. On the other hand, maybe the girl hadn't forgiven him and he was throwing another fit and breaking furniture. "You okay in there, buddy?"

No answer, no sound of anything actually. Weeeeird.

"Scott, I'm coming in," she rambled and braced herself. "So, y'know, I hope you're decent...and all."

Just as she started to turn the knob, the door swung open to reveal Scott. Heavy of breath and dishelved, but at least fully clothed and alive.

"Joe! You're back!" he said with too much enthusiasm on his boyish face. He tried to discreetly adjust his shirt.

Too nosy for her own good, Joe peered inside. No mysterious pieces of clothing or suspicious lumps on the bed to indicate another presence. "Are you alone?"

Scott took a deep breath as he grinned. "Yep!"

Joe squinted. "I thought I heard something..."

"I - uh - tripped."

Scott rubbed the back of his head and Joe took the opportunity to dart inside the room. Everything looked normal. It was just...she had this feeling that...

"Do you smell that?" Joe asked and sniffed a couple of times to be sure.

Scott stood by the door, holding it open in case she took the hint and left. "Smell what?"

"That...cologne or something," Joe mumbled, because she was not exactly sure what it was. Not as pungent as the last time, but still present. Like he had just been here. "This sort of spicy, earthy, woody..." Joe waved her hands around, unable to articulate into words. It smelled like dark, dark red mixed with a grainy texture and that did not make sense at all. It was not unpleasant, not at all, but sort of invasive.

"Did that guy come back?"

Scott radiated innocense, much like Stiles did whenever he was 100% undoubdtedly guilty of something. "What guy?"

"The guy you told me to call the cops on if he came back."

"Oh, that guy! Uh, no, nope, he didn't."

"Weird," Joe mumbled and took another glance at the completely empty room. She shook it off, maybe Scott had gotten a new shower gel or something. "You want cocoa? I'm freezing."

It seemed like Scott would agree to anything to get her out of the room. She made cocoa, but the cold resided for hours, the howling at the back of her mind.

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